Petition to Remove Statue of Murderer Stalin from D-Day Memorial

Written By : Warner Todd Huston

There has been a lot of anger over the inclusion of a statue of Joseph Stalin, Russia’s murderous WWII dictator, in our National D-Day Memorial in Bedford, Virginia.As a result of that anger a petition has been started to remove the Stalin celebration from the National D-Day Memorial.

Thousands of Americans feel that including a statue celebrating the life of this monster is the wrong way to go about memorializing Russia’s sacrifice during WWII and they want the statue pulled down.

Others, though, say that if we pull down the statue we are whitewashing history. After all, they say, we have statues to the other Allied leaders and excluding Stalin just makes no sense.

I disagree with those that think we must memorialize Stalin in order to be true to a valid accounting of history. What should have been done to memorialize Russia’s dear sacrifice during WWII was to recognize the nation’s effort without building a statue to one of the worst murderers in human history. The statue should have been of Russia itself, not Stalin.

It simply galls to have a statue to one of humanities worst criminals on the soil of one of the world’s freest nations. Joseph Stalin has oceans of blood on his hands and we should not be celebrating his life.

Please visit the petition at: http://stalinstatue.com/

Citizen’s Petition to Remove the Stalin Statue from the National D-Day Memorial

I, the undersigned, STAND for the memory of all the Allied troops of the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, France, Poland, Australia, and Norway who gave their lives on D-Day or in the ensuing combat on the Western Front.

I STAND for the American veterans currently living in the State of Virginia, and in all other States, who survived D-Day, risking their lives to liberate Western Europe from tyranny.

I AFFIRM that the true history of World War II must be protected from distortion and misinformation which threaten to erase or alter well-established and documented facts.

I RECOGNIZE, on the basis of overwhelming historical evidence, that neither Joseph Stalin nor Soviet forces played any part in the D-Day landings at Normandy.

I AFFIRM that a bust of Joseph Stalin has no place at the National D-Day Memorial in Bedford, Virginia, whose stated purpose is to “honor the valor, fidelity, and sacrifice of Allied forces on D-Day,” June 6, 1944, and that a Stalin statue should not be displayed with statues of the leaders of the Western Allies responsible for the triumph of D-Day.

I therefore PETITION the Officers and Board of Directors of the National D-Day Memorial Foundation to remove the bust of Stalin from the grounds of the Memorial immediately; I further PETITION Interior Secretary Kenneth Salazar to ensure that if the National D-Day Memorial should come under the National Park Service, no bust or statue of Stalin will be included or allowed; in so acting, the National D-Day Memorial Foundation and Interior Secretary Salazar will safeguard the sacred memory of D-Day for ourselves, our veterans, and future generations.

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Evilbookworm

I disagree, and believe that the statue does in fact, belong there. He was a horrible mass murderer, on a scale seen rarely in history, but without him, it's quite possible that the war could have been lost before we ever really started swinging. His sheer stubbornness and fear (the same fear we rightfully hate him so for now) kept the Russian nation together during a very dark time, and as such, he does belong there. To remove him from such would be like removing Hitler from a list of influential people– we may not like it, but he had an impact far greater than most.

http://conservativebootcamp.com Martin Hale

And what, exactly did Mr. Stalin have to do with D-Day, again?

Oh, that's right – nothing whatsoever.

Or did you just want to gloss over the fact that it's a National D-Day Memorial? The OP only used that phrase seven times in 505 words – so clearly you couldn't be expected to have it register, could you?

D-Vega

You are correct martin, and so is the author.

If this were a monument celebrating the leaders of the Allies in WWII, then it would be perfectly appropriate for Stalin to be there.

Otherwise, I don't know what they were thinking.
Fiza1

Evilbookworm is right on and obviously knows far more about WWII history than you do.
Nothing? The USSR fought and kept at least 75% of the Wehrmacht at bay on the eastern front while the US and the UK built up the invasion force in England and invaded Sicily and Italy. Hitler threw most of his resources at the USSR during the invasion of Russia and the disastrous retreat. How many eastward trains per day did it take to keep his army supplied? Something like 75 per day? Imagine if all those thousands of tanks, aircraft, trucks, fuel, etc. and a couple of million more well trained Wehrmacht forces were waiting for the allied invasion. Imagine if Rommel got the support he wanted. Rommel continually complained about all the support going to the eastern front. Imagine if the Wehrmacht had all that fuel and thousands of aircraft lost on the eastern front for use during the Battle of the bulge.
Sure the allies would have eventually invaded Europe via Italy and France and won the war, but at what additional cost?

D-Vega

I would wonder why we would we celebrate foreign leaders. If anything, make it about all the men who died fighting from all the countries. A multicultural memorial. I dont want Churchill's neither.

Stalin has always made it up there in the Hitler level of evil. Its disturbing to see his image in America displayed like that.

Fiza1

Where did I say that Hitler or Stalin weren't evil. Stalin's tactics were even poor. Stalin's military aid, Khrushchev, thought he was going to be shot when he tried to convince Stalin to order a a defensive retreat versus Stalin's no retreat, fight-to-the-death strategy. Again, my point here is that the Wehrmact expended at least 75% of it's resourses in the eastern front. That fact made the invasion of France feasable at the time.

http://conservativebootcamp.com Martin Hale

Fiza, what you've established is that the Germans made a spectacularly poor decision to fight a two-front war, thus splitting their limited men and materials, not that Stalin was a decisive factor in our D-Day invasion. Hitler's lousy strategy ? Stalin's help in D-Day. It's been well established that Hitler made a poor decision in attacking the USSR when he did, and he doubled down on his strategic error by not going after the Soviet oil fields first. Just because the Germans decided to split their limited resources of men and materials doesn't make Stalin a contributor to our success at Normandy. If anything, there should be a bust of Hitler at the D-Day Memorial for his stupid, self-inflicted and unprompted mistake in strategy. To use a footie metaphor, he scored the ultimate own goal by following in the footsteps of that other great European mad genius, Napoleon. Or maybe there should be a sculpture of a frozen winter scene, since the Russian winter did as much as Stalin did to tie up German men and resources.

The whole point of the National D-Day Memorial is to honour those people and nations which were part of the D-Day invasion force. The Soviets weren't part of the invasion and therefore have no logical place in the memorial.

Your line of reasoning and that of evilbookworm might have some merit, were the memorial in question one that celebrated the totality of the Allied victory in WWII, but that's not the case, is it? No, it's a memorial specifically dedicated to the D-Day event. Your line of reasoning also might have merit had Stalin been the one to attack Germany from the East, thus taking a strategic action which diverted the German attention and resources. But that didn't happen, did it?

You'll notice that I didn't veer down the path of excoriating Mr. Stalin for his well-known crimes against his own people. You'll notice that I'm not arguing that he wasn't an influential part of WWII. You'll notice that I'm not slagging the brave Soviet troops who fought against all odds. What I'm saying is very specific – that Stalin has no place at a D-Day memorial because neither he, nor the Soviet troops were part of the D-Day event.

All you've really proved here is that you're an obtuse and oppositional person.

Fiza1

“Fiza, what you've established is that the Germans made a spectacularly poor decision to fight a two-front war, …”. No, what I have established is the obvious, that is, Germany expended and lost at least 75% of their men and war materials on the eastern front. By D-day, the Wehrmacht was in retreat and had virtually no chance of victory, or even a stalemate on the eastern front. Whether Hitler and Stalin made huge strategic decisions is immaterial. I am not belittling the D-day invasion either. Without D-day and the allied invasions of North Africa, Sicily, Italy and Southern France, the outcome on the eastern front may have been different, at least have taken a lot longer to accomplish. D-day would have been impossibe in June of 1944 without the German disaster on the eastern front.

UFKA_Smithwick

If it were a monument simply to the victors of WWII I would agree, Stalin should be up there even if he was really no better than the enemy we were fighting.

But he had nothing to do with D-Day so he shouldn't have been there.

You may as well put Hitlers statue up there because without his remarkably poor decision making D-Day would never have been possible.

http://conservativebootcamp.com Martin Hale

Fiza, I'm not saying that the fighting the Soviets wasn't disastrous for the Germans. Nor am I saying that it wasn't a distraction. I'm saying that Stalin doesn't belong in our D-Day Memorial which is dedicated to honouring Allied Armed Forces personnel for their courage, bravery, sacrifice and heroism in participating in a suicidal, but high-stakes mission. Stalin and the Soviets weren't part of the D-Day invasion. This memorial is not the UN D-Day Memorial, or the NATO D-Day Memorial, nor is it a tribute to the Allied Victory in Europe – it's the US National D-Day Memorial. It's there to commemorate a specific battle fought by our service personnel. Having a bust of Stalin there is at best off-point to the mission and purpose of the memorial.

And when you get right down to it, the decision to fight a two-front war was solely in the hands of Hitler and the German leadership. Hitler could have saved all those lives and materials he lost in the invasion of Russia simply by not invading. He distracted himself. The responsibility for the distraction was all on the Germans. I might feel differently about it had Stalin been the one to tear up the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and invade Germany/Poland to open up the second front. But he didn't.

The Russians have dozens of war memorials honouring the bravery and courage of the Russians who died in the war. I've seen a half-dozen of them. They don't have any qualms about keeping the focus of their memorials on their own Armed Forces and civilians. They understand the need to show some national pride by recognising the sacrifices and bravery of their people. Why is that we should be so distracted? It's our memorial and it honours our service personnel and those from the other nations who joined us in the field of battle on 6 June, 1944. Why is that we can't stay true to the stated purpose of the memorial? What is so wrong with just honouring our service personnel and those from the other nations who fought alongside them at D-Day? What's wrong with inculcating a bit of national pride in the specific accomplishments of our troops?

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